Leon Greenman OBE was a British anti-fascism campaigner and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
26 Facts About Leon Greenman
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Leon Greenman gave regular talks to school children about his experience at Auschwitz, and wrote a book, An Englishman in Auschwitz.
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Leon Greenman was born on 18 December 1910 in Whitechapel in the East End of London, which at the time had many Jewish residents.
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Leon Greenman's mother died when he was two years old, and, aged 5, he went to live in Rotterdam with his father's Dutch parents.
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Leon Greenman trained as a boxer, and returned to London where he became a barber.
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Leon Greenman enjoyed singing, and met his future wife Esther van Dam at an amateur operatic society in the 1930s.
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Leon Greenman joined his father-in-law's bookselling business, often travelling to London.
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Leon Greenman considered returning to live in England in the 1930s, but decided to stay in the Netherlands after hearing Neville Chamberlain's promise of "peace for our time" on the radio in 1938.
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Leon Greenman's son, Barnett, known as Barney, was born on 17 March 1940.
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Leon Greenman held a British passport, and had expected that he and his family would be evacuated, but the staff at the British consulate in Rotterdam disappeared and he could not escape.
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Leon Greenman described travelling for 36 hours across Europe with no food or water, to the death camp at Birkenau where upon arrival the snow outside the train was littered with suitcases abandoned by people who had arrived before them.
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Leon Greenman was sent in a different direction, one of 50 men selected to be labourers.
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Leon Greenman was tattooed on his arm with prisoner number 98288, and became a slave labourer.
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Leon Greenman made a promise to God that he would survive and tell others of the suffering in the camps.
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Leon Greenman was transferred to the Monowitz industrial complex inside Auschwitz in September 1943, where he was subjected to medical experiments.
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Leon Greenman returned to Rotterdam immediately after the war, and he moved back to England in November 1945.
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Leon Greenman took home uniforms and other mementos of his imprisonment.
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Leon Greenman lived in Ilford, working on a market stall for 40 years, and performing as a tenor under the stage name "Leon Maure".
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Leon Greenman donated photographs and mementos to the Jewish Museum in Finchley, which opened a permanent gallery showing his collection in 1995.
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Into his nineties Leon Greenman was to be found in the museum every Sunday, willing to talk to anyone about his experiences and he guided tours around the camp at Auschwitz.
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Leon Greenman campaigned against the far right, regularly receiving threats of violence as a result; in 1994, his home in London was attacked.
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Leon Greenman actively supported the Anti-Nazi League and Unite Against Fascism.
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Leon Greenman received an OBE for services against racism in 1988.
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Leon Greenman suffered a heart attack in 2006, and received a pacemaker.
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Leon Greenman died in Barnet Hospital, having contracted pneumonia after an operation on a broken bone sustained in a fall.
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Leon Greenman was buried at East Ham Cemetery, near his father and two siblings.